CURIOSITIES

I have some curious books in my library. Well, a lot of them are curious. (Some people say that's because I am curious, or is that peculiar? I forget.) In any case, I think the strangest one is a small copy of Martin Luther's German New Testament written in shorthand. It is beyond me why anyone would publish a book in shorthand. Anyone who could read the shorthand could also read the actual German. Maybe somebody thought anything, even shorthand, would be easier to read than the Fraktur type used to print German books before 1941. Maybe it's just a German thing. Ve know how to read und write in shorthand, zo ve vill publish zis book in shorthand. People vill like it or else. I know my cousin routinely wrote notes to herself in shorthand, and her ancestry was 100% German. In any case, the book remains a mystery to me.

Not really curious, but special to me is a book titled simply Chicago by Studs Terkel. Studs is a fixture in the Chicago literary world. He took his nickname from the character Studs Lonigan in the books by James Farrel. He's probably best known for his oral histories like Division Street America, Hard Times, Working, and The Good War. Last year the ninety-five-year-old published his latest book, Touch and Go. I used to listen to his radio program where he interviewed anybody who was anybody and a lot of people who seemed to be nobody. And he always signed off, "Take it easy, but take it." One of my fond memories is of eating at Chicago's Berghoff Restaurant and seeing Studs a few tables away obviously enjoying himself. I finally met Studs when he spoke at a book fair in Miami in the late 80s. It was his first time in that city since WWII. I asked him to autograph my copy of Chicago. As soon as I told him I was from Chicago, he asked me where, I told him, just west of Wrigley Field, near Damen and Addison. Of course he knew exactly where that was. So I have this book inscribed, "To Father Wayne, Peace! Studs Terkel." Priceless.

One author I wish I could have met was Robert Benchley, noted humorist, theater critic, actor, and member of the Algonquin Round Table. I have a few of his books in reprints, but my prizes are three original editions. Well not quite original. Two of the books, Benchley or Else and Chips off the Old Benchley. are posthumous collections of his works. The only one that I own published during his lifetime is My Ten Years in a Quandry and How they Grew. Unfortunately it is a 1940 reprint and not the 1936 first edition, but the stories are just as good. Two of the books have Dewey Decimal System call numbers carefully written on their spines in white ink. On one of the books the librarian had to paint a patch of back across the spine so the white numbers could be placed on it. And inside on the full title page, a librarian has pedantically corrected the author's name by inserting his middle name "Charles." As far as I know, he never published using his middle name. Amusingly, his long-time friend and colleague Dorothy Parker always called him Mr. Benchley and he called her Mrs. Parker. Lest you think I swiped this book from the Harris County Public Library in Huston, I assure you that it is properly stamped "discard." I evidently bought it somewhere for 96 cents (marked down from $1.25). I don't know where I found it since I've never been in Huston. I do know the provenance of the other volume. It once belonged to the West Baden College Library which passed it on to the Bellarmine Library (which later changed its name to the Jesuit School of Theology) which moved into the same facility as the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago which then combined the libraries and later added McCormick Theological Seminary's library as well, and then kept all the books when the Jesuit School faculty moved to Berkeley. Well, there wasn't room for such ephemeral books such as the writings of Robert Benchley in the new combined library, so it was sold to me, probably for fifty cents. Their loss, my gain. The last article in this collection is "Why Does Nobody Collect Me?" in which Mr. Benchley bemoans the fact that no one collects his writings. He's had even found autographed presentation copies he had given out in second hand book stores. Oh, how I would like to come by one of those to add to my curiosities.

I have a number of crumbling books from the mid to late 19th century. Most are old hymnals, but I do have a set of the collected works of Charles Dickens printed in 1896. While the pages are in good shape, the covers are falling off. I have been hauling them around with me for the past 30 years. I can't bring myself to part with them even though they aren't in any condition to read. Hmm, I wonder if I could call my apartment, The Old Curiosity Shop in recognition of the Dickens set. Well, it's better than Bleak House.

For my final selection, a really old book. Actually, its only one page of a book. It is a hand written on vellum from an Italian Antiphonale made in 1423. It is a beautiful piece of Gregorian chant with two decorative capitals in red and blue ink. (That's it in the picture.) The central text is the Alleluia for the common of a confessor not a bishop. Alleluia, Beatus vir,Blessed is the man who fears the Lord. I bought it for $25, 38 years ago when I was a poor student. It must have taken all the money I had. I have since then purchased a page from another much nicer manuscript, but nothing gives me as much pleasure as my first find.

Well, that's all for today. I'm not sure how often I'll be able to update the blog until after Easter as my schedule gets pretty pressing this time of year.

May the Lord God bless you on your way and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne